Lethe, << LEE thee >>, was one of five rivers in the underworld in Greek and Roman mythology. These rivers served as a boundary between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Lethe is a Greek word meaning forgetfulness. Drinking from Lethe caused the souls of the dead to forget what happened to them on earth. Those souls that were to be reincarnated—that is, reborn in new bodies—drank from Lethe to forget their former lives and their existence in the underworld. Many poets have used Lethe as a symbol of forgetfulness or of a deathlike sleep.
